Researchers Comb Through First Responders’ Tapes and Testimonies

PublishedAugust 27, 2005

(Aug. 2005)?

“You know like when they demolish a building, how when they blow up a building, when it falls down? That’s what I thought I saw.”

This month the New York Times published a vast online archive of emergency-call tapes, radio transcripts and first responders’ oral histories of September 11th at the World Trade Center. The Times waged a long legal battle with the City of New York to gain the records’ release under the Freedom of Information Act.?

9/11 researchers combing through the new documents are discovering a surprising number of witnesses who said they saw or heard bombs going off at the WTC, among other anomalies, in some cases long before the buildings came down. One anonymous researcher has compiled many such passages from firefighters’ testimonies . A discussion thread at a 9/11 forum includes a few more, plus a number of seemingly outlandish statements as well as counter-arguments from debunkers.?

We’re not sure where this line of inquiry is heading, but it’s hard not to be impressed by items like the following:

Gregory Stephen, Assistant Commissioner (F.D.N.Y.) p 14

A. No. I know I was with an officer from Ladder 146, a Lieutenant Evangelista, who ultimately called me up a couple of days later just to find out how I was. We both for whatever reason — again, I don’t know how valid this is with everything that was going on at that particular point in time, but for some reason I thought that when I looked in the direction of the Trade Center before it came down, before No. 2 came down, that I saw low-level flashes. In my conversation with Lieutenant Evangelista, never mentioning this to him, he questioned me and asked me if I saw low-level flashes in front of the building, and I agreed with him because I thought — at that time I didn’t know what it was. I mean, it could have been as a result of the building collapsing, things exploding, but I saw a flash flash flash and then it looked like the building came down. Q. Was that on the lower level of the building or up where the fire was? A. No, the lower level of the building. You know like when they demolish a building, how when they blow up a building, when it falls down? That’s what I thought I saw. And I didn’t broach the topic to him, but he asked me. He said I don’t know if I’m crazy…

There is no consensus on this issue among 911Truth.org staff, but here is a collection of articles arguing that the WTC buildings must have been demolished using explosives.